


you smiled, it broke my heart

by veniyuri



Series: butterfly effect [3]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst and Tragedy, Companion Piece, Drama & Romance, Jongin POV, M/M, Soulmates, Vampire!Chanyeol, Vampire!Jongin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veniyuri/pseuds/veniyuri
Summary: It takes over a month for Jongin to accept that he will never achieve the perfect death he'd been craving.or, jongin's side of hush hush baby
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol, Kim Jongin | Kai/Kim Minseok | Xiumin
Series: butterfly effect [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624495
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	you smiled, it broke my heart

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote like 80% of this in the last two days because quarantine made me feral, and while I did consult with hhb to get my chronology right, I decided I wanted to do another pov mostly on a whim so if some details are inconsistent... that's on me and my lack of foresight.
> 
> My mainstream reared its head with how much of a role chanbaek got, and there's significantly less dialogue between Minseok and Jongin but mostly because a lot of what I wanted them to say they said in hhb. So this fic is more of getting to watch Jongin's thoughts and feelings develop, since I do think because of the nature of their relationship, while Minseok did love him there was still a lot he never got to learn about Jongin :'(
> 
> Also I think this one turned out a bit heavier than hhb if that's possible, so I do want to warn for that because the hopefulness just didn't have a place like it did in Minseok's pov :( That being said, I do highly recommend reading the first work in this series before this one!!

Humans could never endure the weight of a life. The man withering in his arms, clawing at his clothes for just a second, a moment more of existence, is an experience that would have broken the Jongin that was still human.

The vampire simply waits until he sees the light fade. It's not the first time he's dumped a body after taking from it. It's better to rip the corpse to pieces and scatter them, just in case they're discovered, and small parts are easier to hide. Jongin finds that tiring though, and it's easier to just find an ocean.

Lakes are no good. He couldn't return to his last residence because a corpse was discovered and he'd been careless about covering his tracks.

He's never tried rivers, but he imagines it's more of the same and he doesn't want a repeat performance.

Sometimes when he's finally found the sweet spot, the city that'll host him for however long he can convince people he's really twenty-something and human, Jongin questions what it's all for. When the survival instinct recedes, what does he have left?

He's tried to talk with Chanyeol about it, but his fellow vampire that he can't even call a friend just says Jongin is the most existential vampire he's ever met.

_We live until we die, Jongin._

So that's what Jongin does, centuries on end. He lives until he dies.

"Why do you want to live?"

The woman bleeding out at his feet gurgles, and he's not sure she even heard him let alone retained the consciousness to reply. But her eyes are frantic and alive, a hummingbird pulse of adrenaline.

"Please, spare me—" She chokes on her own blood, and Jongin doesn't know what she expects him to do about that. He's not a doctor.

"Why?"

"Please," she begs, like the human mind's last defense is begging like a lowest rung insect. When you've sat atop the pyramid for so long, it makes sense that maybe it's all humans have ever been in the first place.

"My sister..."

There's a serial killer in the area. Jongin did a sloppy copycat job of it, but he's full and he's—well he's living because he hasn't died yet, and that's all he's expected to do in a world that wasn't made for him.

Family. Lovers. The ones left behind. He gets the same answer every time.

He's not there to hear the woman's last breath, but he's sure her story is no different than the countless of others he's heard. Jongin doesn't know what he expected from humans he'll never be able to relate to.

Chanyeol whoops when Jongin finally finishes another can of beer, crushing it down into a disk with his hand and cracking the table with it.

"Why the hell are we drinking, Chanyeol?" He hadn't bothered asking earlier. The way Chanyeol works, they meet every few decades by coincidence and because Jongin doesn't have anything better to do, he just nods to every inane suggestion the other has. And Chanyeol knows it, which is why he goes to Jongin for his inane suggestions.

The other vampire flops onto his back, spreading out like a starfish and laughing with his whole chest. "Why not?" he asks, his voice as deep and bubbly as the hard liquor he downed like a cocktail. "Baek's funeral is tomorrow."

Jongin doesn't flinch. It's not the first time he's heard those words.

"Why do you always seem happy about it?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" Chanyeol waves his hand, and he must think he's saying something but Jongin doesn't get it. He's also drunk, so he especially doesn't get it.

"All the humans I've killed are terrified of leaving their loved ones behind. I don't understand, but I thought you should be able to." Jongin wrinkles his nose. "You just make me understand even less."

He doesn't know what part of his statement was funny, but Chanyeol is in hysterics rolling on the floor.

"Jongin, I know you don't mean to, but you're such an asshole."

Jongin flicks one of his flattened cans at Chanyeol's forehead, and even inebriated the other catches it right before it can slice his head open.

"Why shouldn't I be happy? It's yet another lifetime I've gotten to see Baek grow up and be happy. I can't go to the funeral this time though because his family will recognize me as his ex, but like, his ex from college."

At first, Jongin wanted to use Chanyeol as his case study. A vampire like him who felt love like a human. Except Chanyeol has a soulmate not a lover, and Jongin can't relate to that either.

"You don't know when you'll see him again though," he points out.

"I'll see him. That's how we are; death is just a temporary pause. He gets to play very, very hard to get until he gives in to my charms once more." Chanyeol sighs. And his happiness escapes a little with his breath. "He's the one who told me that, when I was by his deathbed."

Jongin pops open another can and hands it over. Chanyeol takes it without another word.

They've done this enough times that they don't really need to go over it again. Chanyeol already had his breakdown by his soulmate's side, and now he's patching up his heart for the unknown stretch of time between now and the next.

Jongin doesn't know how to empathize. No one he sees die comes back as someone else, and he can't begin to imagine what it's like to have something to look forward to.

Jongin is just living until he dies.

There's more than one way to live; humans make that clear with their candle flame lives and short wicks. Jongin has tried all of them.

He buys until he becomes bored of spending money.

He drinks until he gets bored of the world spinning.

He fucks until everyone blends into one and he's just tired of them all.

And there's still more life for him to live. An indefinitely long amount of life.

Jongin doesn't want to die just because he doesn't want to live. But if there's one thing he wants, it's to learn why the whole world fears the end that's to come instead of waiting for it.

Vampires are solitary by choice, usually. Chanyeol is one of the few of his kind that Jongin has met, and the total can be counted on one hand. The others, however, he's never met more than once. When they'd first run into each other again, Chanyeol asked him if he was lonely.

Jongin had said maybe, because he hadn't really known himself then and still doesn't now. But even if the answer was yes, he doesn't think he'd want to stay with Chanyeol. They have an understanding that makes time flow a little faster when they're together, but Jongin wants to go different places than Chanyeol and Chanyeol isn't interested in the same questions Jongin is.

They're two ships set on perpendicular courses—destined to cross at only one point.

So while one point has become handfuls, it's never intentional. They never seek each other out; life has just deemed them unable to get rid of each other. That's how it is and how Jongin expected it to stay, until Park Chanyeol shows up at his doorstep.

He'd moved several times since their last meeting.

"Jongin," Chanyeol says, and his distress is so thick Jongin's body stiffens to a state of naturally heightened alert, looking for danger. Chanyeol's hands on his forearms come with strength unchecked, and if he were human Jongin would certainly bruise.

"Jongin, have you seen Baek?"

If anyone knows about Chanyeol's soulmate, Jongin would say he's looking at him. He shakes his head, and Chanyeol deflates. He might have just collapsed right in the hallway if Jongin hadn't hauled him inside and set him on the couch, where he looks like he'd rather become one with the cushion.

"What's this about?" he asks. It doesn't seem like there's any danger, but something is wrong and Jongin won't relax until he knows what. His body takes time to bleed out of survival mode—longer while he doesn't know what's making someone like Chanyeol look like his world is caving in.

"Jongin, I think I'm dying."

There's stillness, and then there's absolute freezing of motion. Down to every vampire sense he has, Jongin detects absolutely nothing in the wake of Chanyeol's news. From neither him nor Chanyeol.

"What does that mean?"

Time seems to flow again, and Jongin sits in another chair.

"I don't know—I've never met a vampire like me, but... but I can _feel_ it." He looks at his hands like he's never seen them before. "I'm going to die soon." He whispers it like a prophecy. Not one he doesn't believe, but one he doesn't believe can exist.

"How can you tell?" Jongin doesn't doubt Chanyeol's senses; vampires have too long to know themselves better than anyone. But Jongin, in all his experience with life, does not know what death feels like.

"When we get as old as we do, we know what life is like. Our kind of life, anyways." It's a funny thing, calling yourself alive when technically you've died once. But none of them quite remember what they were before they lived like this. "In this life, I don't get tired like I have been. I don't react so slowly. Sometimes I'm not even thirsty—and I've tried _starving_ myself just to check."

That's what startles Jongin the most. Vampires have very little limits, but their biggest weakness has always been their hunger. In practice, they cannot starve themselves. When one goes too long without feeding, the body's natural instinct takes over and preserves itself any way it can find. With the abundance of humans around, most vampires relieve the ache eventually, only coming to their senses once it's all over. 

The fact that Chanyeol is here and there haven't been any news stories about a mass homicide means that even his bloodlust is malfunctioning.

"Could you be sick?" he asks. Their kind have never heard of a sickness that they're susceptible to, but Jongin has never seen a vampire die either.

Chanyeol sighs and shakes his head. "Vampires can't get sick. But we can die. We know we can die, and I'm just experiencing how."

When life becomes such a constant that death feels like too far away a dream, Jongin imagines there's no shortage of despair that that comes with. But Chanyeol looks more calm speaking of his end than he had when he first showed up. He wouldn't seek out Jongin for the first time in their near immortal existence for this.

"What does Baekhyun have to do with this?"

By the way Chanyeol's whole expression cracks, Jongin knows this is what it is. And because he's nothing more than useless about soulmate matters, he knows he can't help. Just like he knows Chanyeol has no other option.

"I haven't found him yet," he admits, and the words feel like they're splintering him at his core. "We had a few other lifetimes since the last time I saw you, and they were—" Chanyeol wavers. "They were beautiful. Like always." He seems to get lost in his memories, and Jongin lets him. After all, he knows nothing about matters of soulmates. "But I haven't found him, and I'm dying."

Jongin wishes he could feel anything but lost. He's never seen Chanyeol so... broken isn't the right word. But devastated, Chanyeol looks like he's decided to murder his precious Baekhyun before he's even met him.

"Jongin," Chanyeol says, and it looks like he remembers his company doesn't understand soulmates. Or love, even. "If I die before I meet him again, he's going to be all alone."

"He won't even know you then," Jongin points out. 

And at this, Chanyeol sighs and shakes his head. Jongin decides not to be offended that he's being treated like a child who doesn't know better.

"That's not how soulmates work. Baek never knows me, but his soul remembers. His soul will spend a lifetime looking for mine, and he'll miss me. But because I won't exist, he doesn't even know what he's missing. He won't know what the hollow feeling in his chest is, and he won't know how to fix it." Chanyeol grips his own shirt over where his heart is. "He's going to be so lonely, and no matter what he does it will never go away. Do you know, after he died the first time in my arms, how much I tried to replace him with anything?"

Jongin doesn't. He never asked, and Chanyeol never told. He'd actually thought it was strange Chanyeol was so rational about Baekhyun's short lives, but now he realizes Chanyeol has known Baekhyun far longer than he's known Jongin.

"I never want him to feel that way. I never want him to be stuck like that—for thousands of years, I've made sure he never dies lonely, and now—" Chanyeol heaves in a breath he doesn't need and holds his head in his hands. "Now I can't stop it from being the only way he ever will."

Should he reach out for Chanyeol? Pat his shoulder or give him a hug? A human would do that. Byun Baekhyun would probably do that. But Kim Jongin is neither human nor Baekhyun. Still, his hand goes out, and Chanyeol grabs it before it can reach his person. His eyes bear into Jongin's, and suddenly Jongin knows they are not just talking about Baekhyun.

"There is nothing scarier, Jongin, than dying all alone."

He'd offered to let Chanyeol stay with him, until the end, if it would help, but after five days of playing roommates he found Chanyeol's belongings packed neatly by the door.

"When I say I'm going to die soon, it's soon for us. But for a human... it could be a lifetime. I might find him before then, it's just... never been an uncertainty before. Not like this." The smile Chanyeol gave him was more real than any of the ones he'd had since he found Jongin. "But I'm glad I was able to make a friend like you. Our kind isn't always lucky like that."

Jongin doesn't know if he can be counted as a friend, much less a good one, but if Chanyeol's last words to him said that they were, then it won't hurt to accept them as true. 

He never sees Chanyeol again.

But surprisingly, he meets Byun Baekhyun.

Of all the things Jongin does to fill in the years he has left, being a teaching assistant is probably the stupidest. It's a lot of work for no real payoff, and it doesn't make him want to live any more than usual. Sometimes it actually makes him want to live less.

But it brings him to Byun Baekhyun, and a little hope rises in his chest at the possibility of seeing Chanyeol again. The age is about right—they could be together without suspicion for these niche few years.

Except when Jongin asks rather untactfully if Baekhyun has a boyfriend, the boy only laughs.

"Are you hitting on me? I didn't know that was allowed."

Jongin remembers his friend's face, and shakes his head. "I would never."

Baekhyun pouts, and he pushes his history notes away. "Well I wasn't interested, but that doesn't mean I'm not a good catch! Rude."

Jongin doesn't have the empathy in him to feel bad he hurt Chanyeol's boyfriend's feelings. But if he's interpreting this right, then, "So you're single?"

Baekhyun groans. "What, do you want to laugh at me? Yes, I'm single, and I don't know why I'm telling you."

"And are you okay with that?"

Baekhyun's nostrils flare and he looks ready for a fight before he catches Jongin's eye. "What, I need a boyfriend to—"

Jongin remembers what Chanyeol said, about souls and loneliness. He remembers Chanyeol crying.

"Are you okay, Baekhyun?" he asks, because he has a sinking feeling that Chanyeol can't ask it himself.

The boy stills, and his lip wobbles before he seems to curl in on himself. "What would you know about it?" he demands, and in a flurry of papers and the sound of his backpack hitting the edge of the table as he flings it over one shoulder, he hurried away from Jongin's office hours.

Unfortunately, Jongin muses to himself, he knows much more about Baekhyun than he wants to.

He expects the boy to ignore him from then on, but surprisingly it only takes a week for him to show up again and crack open a notebook of the week's lectures.

Jongin helps like he's supposed to, but he knows Baekhyun can feel the questions in his eyes and is ignoring them all the same. When they finish reviewing the contents of the week, Jongin is ready to wave goodbye and frustrate himself thinking about what Chanyeol would want him to do when Baekhyun doesn't quite stand up.

"What did you mean last week," Baekhyun starts, "when you asked if I was okay?"

Jongin raises an eyebrow. "Are there that many meanings of 'are you okay'?"

Baekhyun's face scrunches, and Jongin can see how Chanyeol could be smitten. "No, I mean... my friends keep telling me to get a boyfriend like it'll solve my problems, but they don't get it. It's not that I'm lonely or I need to date someone to feel happy, I just—" He grasps for words. "I feel empty sometimes. And I don't know how to make it go away."

Chanyeol's words echo in his head.

_He's going to be so lonely... it will never go away._

Jongin has never been in love, and he has never had a soulmate, but watching two people miss each other by a hair's width from both sides makes him feel like for a second, he can imagine it. He knows why Chanyeol spent five nights crying in his apartment.

"Did you... not know?" Baekhyun speaks up again, suddenly timid. Jongin blinks back into the present.

"Not know what?"

"How I feel. This... this emptiness." He gestures to himself. Jongin sees Chanyeol clutching his chest on his couch, threatening to tear the fabric of his hoodie.

"Why would I know that?" Baekhyun doesn't know it, but Jongin is simultaneously the best and worst person to talk to about this.

He does look a little offended though. "What do you mean why? You asked me if I was okay! And—and I'm not! But you seemed like you knew it!"

He did, kind of, but he'd been guessing. And he doesn't want to take credit for the insight that was never his to begin with. The person Baekhyun really wants is someone neither of them can reach.

"I guessed," Jongin says, and Baekhyun seems angrier than before.

"How could you—never mind. I thought someone understood, but that was stupid of me."

It feels like when Baekhyun marches away, it's the last time Jongin is going to see him, and suddenly he knows he can't do that to Chanyeol. He can't meet his soulmate and then let everything his friend was scared of come true.

"Baekhyun, wait."

Baekhyun stops, but he doesn't turn around and he doesn't say anything. He's dramatic. Chanyeol would have had the time of his life entertaining someone like this.

"I... wouldn't say I understand you. But I knew someone who did."

Baekhyun looks back, and Jongin sees hope and despair staring him in the face.

"What does that mean?"

Jongin never asked Chanyeol too much about his soulmate. Or soulmates in general. But now he wishes he had, because he doesn't know if there's some unspoken rule about not telling your soulmate about past lives or their possibly dead other half. If there is, he awaits the smiting of the universe, because it's a slippery slope from "my friend is your soulmate, but he might be dead now" to "we're both vampires so that's why he's fallen in love with you multiple times."

Baekhyun kind of handles it, but not before he asks Jongin to show him his teeth and observes the sharp canines like a museum exhibit. 

"So, Chanyeol..." Baekhyun says, saying the name carefully and slowly. Jongin has met Baekhyun a few times. He thinks he can hear other Baekhyuns when he says the name, the same way he hears this one who's never even seen Chanyeol's face.

"What does Chanyeol look like? Is my soulmate hot?"

Jongin stutters. "Uh."

"Do you have a picture?" Baekhyun presses on. "Vampires show up in those, right? I had to look up your profile to check your office hours, and you had a picture."

Jongin never expected anyone in his life but him to care about what Chanyeol looks like, so he only has his memories. "We do show up, but... I never took one of him." And he also doesn't know if Chanyeol left any record behind that's publicly accessible. It sounds a bit dangerous all things considered. Jongin, when he registers himself into systems, has contingency plans for wiping his existence when it's time.

"What kind of friends were you? You didn't even take one selfie?"

"I didn't even know we were friends until the last time we talked."

Baekhyun gapes, and then groans, throwing his hands up dramatically. "You guys were the bare minimum of what counts as friendship."

Well, Jongin doesn't think he's wrong. But he does believe he's pulling more friendship weight than he ever has by involving himself with Byun Baekhyun.

Soulmates tend to trivialize a whole lot of technicalities, like how humans are fundamentally exhausting to be around as a centuries old corpse. Chanyeol spoke of Baekhyun like he was the sun itself blessing the earth with life, and while Jongin wouldn't go that far, the young man he'd met in the rare times he caught Chanyeol in his prime had seemed pleasant enough.

He had been naive. Byun Baekhyun is a menace, and this is not what death feels like but Jongin dares to think that if he hadn't witnessed what dying looked like on Chanyeol, he'd believe a mere human singlehandedly capable of shortening his lifespan.

He couldn't stay a TA forever, and while he eventually abandoned the job and the life he'd built, he kept Baekhyun around. It was, maybe unsurprisingly, easier to tie up loose human strings when he had a real human to help.

He'd gotten a phone, and Baekhyun remained his first and last contact. He's subjected to daily messages that he used to respond to out of loyalty to Chanyeol, but eventually he reasoned Chanyeol would forgive him if he gave himself a few days a week of peace.

The friendship feels a lot more active on Baekhyun's side, but since he doesn't seem to mind the uneven distribution of effort between them, Jongin lets it be and figures watching over his friend's soulmate is more direction than he's ever had in his life.

Mostly they talk about Baekhyun's day, sometimes Jongin's, and rarer and rarer, they talk about Chanyeol.

Jongin had said early on that just because Baekhyun knows about Chanyeol doesn't mean he can't date other people. In the end, he's still never met Chanyeol in this life, and there's no use holding out for someone who might not even exist anymore. He thinks you can still be happy without your soulmate, but both he and Baekhyun realize over time that Jongin has never had one and can never quite understand the workings of a bond like that.

Baekhyun is drunk, fresh from his recent breakup with a pretty girl who loved him and who he thought he loved too, when he kisses Jongin.

"You're the only one," he says against Jongin's lips. "You're the only one who understands. You're the only one who knows—"

"I'm not him," Jongin cuts in. Not harshly, because he's lost his sharp edges and disregard for human life since meeting Baekhyun. Befriending Baekhyun. "I'll never be him. No one will."

This he knows. Chanyeol had said so, and more than ever, after watching Baekhyun try and fail to fill the void in his life, Jongin feels it's the truth.

Baekhyun gives up on kissing him, and instead punches weakly at his chest. Even giving everything he had, he still wouldn't be able to hurt Jongin.

"It's not fair. It's not fair! How am I supposed to live knowing I'll always feel this way? Why do I have to love someone that I've never met—that doesn't even exist anymore?!"

Jongin doesn't have an answer for him. When Baekhyun begins whimpering, he pulls his friend close and doesn't say a word.

"I hate him, Jongin," Baekhyun whispers. "I know he was your friend, but I hate him. What's the point of a soulmate that only makes me miserable?"

Jongin frowns, and he doesn't resent Baekhyun for his feelings. There's no happy ending for him in this life, and there might not be for any of his other lives in the future. But Chanyeol had been his friend. His first friend.

"Don't say that," he says softly, and Baekhyun looks at him with liquid rage and red-rimmed eyes. Jongin just feels unbearably sad. "You never knew him, but I did. I knew him when he was with you, and I knew him when he was without you." He brushes Baekhyun's fringe aside, the way he'd watched Chanyeol do to another Baekhyun. "And the Chanyeol I knew was always in love with you. He would be so sad to hear you say that."

Baekhyun's eyes waver, and this time he nearly screams when a new wave of sobs wrack his chest. Jongin holds him tighter, and it sounds like _I hate you_ , it sounds like _I love you_ , and it sounds like something Chanyeol will never hear anyways.

When Baekhyun calms down, nearly crying himself into exhaustion, he asks Jongin to tell him stories of Chanyeol with a Baekhyun who could love him.

"You've heard them all."

"No I haven't."

_Tell me again._

_Tell me as many times as it takes to make up for the emptiness he left behind._

"Okay."

"Am I cruel for being relieved that someone might have a shittier love life than me?"

Baekhyun had been trying to balance matchsticks on his eyelashes, and failing every time he blinked.

Jongin is resting on his couch with his eyes closed, but still awake. He only knows what Baekhyun is doing because the other gives vibrant narrations of his progress every few minutes.

"Yeah," Jongin replies. "But I used to ask people the meaning of life before I killed them. Don't feel too bad."

He can't see, but he knows Baekhyun is making a face. "Ew. I still can't believe you had a cold blooded killer phase; you're such a softie."

At that, Jongin sits up. "I _am_ a cold blooded killer, Baekhyun."

Baekhyun sticks his tongue out at him. "Sounds like something a softie at heart would say." He makes what he must think is a genius approximation of Jongin's expression. "I _am_ a cold blooded killer, Baekhyun."

Jongin glares and then gets tired of it before falling back on the couch.

"Tell me about the Romeo more tragic than you."

"Right, so he's a colleague of mine, and he's been worried sick because his boyfriend's always in and out of the hospital. Sounds like he's naturally weak, so Lu Han is always fussing over him even when he's not around."

"Lu Han?"

"My colleague. He's from China."

Jongin grunts in understanding.

"Anyways, so the most recent scare had Lu Han nearly hysterical, and I guess he went a little overboard with his concerns so the second Minseok was discharged, he dumped him."

"Minseok?"

"Lu Han's boyfriend. He did the dumping, by the way. Lu Han won't shut up about it, and even though they're not together anymore, he's still worried about his ex. I told him that's probably what drove him away in the first place, and that he's only making it worse, but—" Baekhyun cuts himself off, then starts again. "Well, it got a little ugly. My 'inability to appreciate true love' bites me in the ass once again."

"That's not true," Jongin replies simply, and Baekhyun hums.

"Hm? What's not?"

"That you can't appreciate true love."

His friend laughs, but Jongin doesn't think it's funny. Baekhyun has... marginally come to terms with his fate a bit better, but Jongin doesn't know if the pay off was worth it. Baekhyun sounds a little more like him every day, and Jongin is, despite what Baekhyun insists, a centuries old corpse that used to murder on the daily. It's not a behavior a human should adapt.

Or rather, he doesn't want to see Baekhyun hate life as much as Jongin does.

"I can't keep a steady relationship, and who knows if I ever will. Lu Han wasn't wrong to question my right to criticize his love life."

"You can love," Jongin insists. "Your heart is too big not to."

Baekhyun laughs again, but at least it doesn't sound so bitter anymore. "See? This is why you're the softie between us."

Jongin groans. "'M not."

"You sound tired. Have you been feeding recently? I've never seen you sleep so much before."

Jongin is about to protest just because it's what he normally does with Baekhyun, except something snags on his attention and his mind races to catch up with what.

It's slow. He's not usually so slow.

Oh.

He _has_ been sleeping a lot recently.

He doesn't know if fate chooses people to favor and people to scorn, but Baekhyun must have an incredible build up of bad karma to wind up tangled with two vampires, two nearly immortal creatures, who were both fated to die within his lifetime.

Jongin hasn't figured out how to tell him, and he's even considered if telling him is even necessary at all. Baekhyun knows Jongin has to move every few years, and he knows too that he can't stay close to Baekhyun forever. It's easy to imagine Jongin going somewhere far away, then just not making it back before Baekhyun's own short life closes.

He has other friends, he's managed to build a life separate from Jongin, and separate even from Chanyeol. Byun Baekhyun will never feel the completeness of meeting his soulmate, but Jongin thinks he won't have lived a miserable life either.

He'd rather Baekhyun hate him for tardiness than despair in the inevitability of death taking yet another special person away. When Jongin dies, there will be no one left to understand the weight Baekhyun has to carry for the rest of his life.

Jongin, in his long, tiresome existence, has committed many sins. He has told many lies, and he has taken many lives. And less damning, but foolish nonetheless, unbearably foolish—he has wasted many years waiting for a life that owes him nothing to present him with a reason to be that he's always been meant to find for himself. 

Lying to his friend that it's time for him to move, and that he has to move far away, is only a feather atop his mound of unforgivable crimes.

He wishes he could disappear completely, but he'd given Baekhyun his phone number. Distance means nothing to 4G networks, and Jongin feels like he's cursed himself for nothing.

He still knows about Baekhyun's colorful life even if they no longer meet, and Baekhyun receives the bland updates of Jongin's uneventful life whenever he asks.

Jongin learns that Lu Han got a new boyfriend, and it seems to be working better.

Then he learns that Lu Han is not better because his boyfriend is mad that he lives near his ex.

And he gets Baekhyun's sympathies too, about how Kim Minseok could die any day, so he wanted to spend the rest with Lu Han even if it caused this whole mess. Because he still loves Lu Han.

"You're close with his ex too?"

"Only kind of. Most of what I know is from gossip, but I've met him a few times and... well I know my life is a special kind of fucked up, but my heart kind of went out to him a little more."

"What does that mean?" Jongin, who has seen many tragedies, thinks Baekhyun's life is, as he said, a special kind of fucked up.

"He's an artist, or used to be. Lu Han liked showing off pictures of his works, but recently he hasn't painted anything. He just works at an art gallery, and according to him he's not good enough to be displayed there without a check to back up his pieces."

Jongin is laying down, resting his eyes because it's become unnaturally hard to keep them open for long periods of time. Baekhyun's chatter filters through his ears a little bit like white noise, but he grunts in comprehension every few seconds to fool himself into thinking he's alert.

"S'that all?"

Baekhyun laughs. "That's pretty sad enough, isn't it? But no, that's not really what I thought was sad. When I was talking to him, 'cause we met by accident before he moved, I saw... something like myself in him?"

"You think he's missing a soulmate too?"

For some reason Baekhyun laughs even harder, and Jongin doesn't know why it's funny but he's glad that Baekhyun can laugh about it. In any capacity. It lets him pretend that Baekhyun will be okay without both a soulmate and a friend. 

"No, not like that. I mean, he's lived most of his life on the brink of death, so you'd think he wouldn't be scared of it. But that day, he'd asked me how Lu Han was after their breakup, and if it was cruel of him to move into the apartment next door."

Jongin remembers when Baekhyun was a student, bright eyed and curious, laughing over the terrible portraits Jongin tried to draw of Chanyeol. That's the closest he'd ever see of the Baekhyun that Chanyeol fell in love with. The closest Baekhyun ever got to feeling like he met Chanyeol. He doesn't know if it's thanks to him or because of him that Baekhyun follows someone else's tragedy just to make his seem less miserable.

"And well, it kinda is isn't it? But I thought I knew why he did it."

"Because he's lonely," Jongin supplies.

"Not just that. He thinks he's going to die soon."

Jongin can relate.

"And?"

"Sometimes I forget you're an undying, ageless denizen of the night. But Jongin, he's a human like me."

"I know that."

"Maybe you can't understand, but for humans, for me at least... there's nothing scarier than dying alone. I think Minseok thinks so too."

Jongin's eyes snap open, and whatever Baekhyun says after that falls on inattentive ears.

He remembers, vividly, the last time he saw Chanyeol.

_There is nothing scarier, Jongin, than dying all alone._

Chanyeol's death must have been sad. Baekhyun's death will not be a peaceful one where Chanyeol holds his hand and tells him he loves him.

But Kim Minseok will not have to die alone. And neither will he be able to miss Jongin when he's gone.

Wen he begins planning what he envisions is his perfect death, Jongin doesn't pretend it'll make up for all of the wrong in his life. It will not heal Baekhyun's half soul, it will not summon Chanyeol from the earth, and it will not earn him the forgiveness of his victims. But if he's lucky, he can die with someone who won't miss him, and someone can die without feeling like no one noticed.

The tragic figure of Kim Minseok is more of a legend than human, birthed by Baekhyun's words, and Jongin is entirely unprepared for him to walk out of hearsay into reality.

He won't accept the money Jongin has too much of to at least make his artist's dream come true.

He can't cook for his life, or rather he can't cook anything interesting for his life.

And for some reason, he doesn't even want to get back with Lu Han, even though Jongin is sure that's what Baekhyun said Minseok still wanted. Why choose to spend your dying days with an ex you don't still love?

Jongin had been considerate of that fact since the day he accosted Minseok, forcing him to take him in. 

In the recent months, as slowly they became more apparent in himself, Jongin understood more intimately the symptoms Chanyeol had explained to him.

Bloodlust, one of the only things vampires fear, feels like almost nothing now. He can go weeks without the tickle in his mind warning him he's at his limit. And when he does feel the urge to feed, instead of charming Minseok into baring his neck to him, he goes after Lu Han's boyfriend who, while not Minseok, almost smells like him.

Jongin doesn't know if he tastes like him too, but chances are he'll be dead before he even gets to find out.

It's not an unusual thing, for vampires to be drawn to a certain scent. Humans have favorite foods, vampires have favorite blood types. Minseok smelled enticing from the moment Jongin saw him for the first time, but he held himself back for various reasons.

It's supposed to be something Minseok is grateful for. Instead, Jongin gets a lecture from him every time he catches Jongin having a meal, and then he's sour for the next few days after that.

But Jongin can't just suck from an already dying man. And aside from the Sehun issue, they're getting along just fine.

The appeal of Minseok is that he doesn't bother with Jongin more than necessary. They might live together, but they're nothing more than two people sharing a space and occasionally watching human movies together, and Jongin has settled comfortably into living in the peripheral of Minseok's life.

With Baekhyun, Jongin felt obligated to involve himself directly. He knows Baekhyun for all his hurt and his rage, just as much as he knows his laughter and his spirit. And for the infinite guilt—pity—sympathy he holds for Baekhyun, Jongin has nothing but fascination for Minseok.

Jongin watches lazily as Minseok tries to cook, and sometimes he catches him hovering over spices before ultimately shying away. And it confuses as much as it endears him that, maybe, Minseok values his opinion so much. That he wants to rectify Jongin's criticisms, but still fears messing up in the opposite way. It's most of the reason why he can still smile through the absolutely plain meals Minseok serves him.

And Minseok snores in his sleep, he brushes his teeth aggressively, in the morning he walks into the same table that he'll also never move, and all the glimpses Jongin catches of him between his own hours of sleep complete his ever growing picture of Kim Minseok.

Baekhyun hadn't done him justice. Baekhyun was using Minseok to project his hurt onto to make it seem less, and Jongin doesn't hate him for it but he knows his friend was wrong. Minseok is not the miserable, dying man Jongin had thought he'd be. He's not the man Jongin thought he could help, so he could feel like he did at least one person right before he died.

Minseok lives unabashedly, just like he has for more than twenty years, and with a lifespan short for even a human, he's lived far more than Jongin with his centuries and centuries of memories.

Jongin falls in love with Minseok's details, with Minseok's life, and he does it knowing that he never could have if he weren't approaching his grave.

In an irony he can't help but feel is fitting for him, Jongin has never felt more alive than when he's dying.

The spring collection might be the last one he ever sees, so why shouldn't he buy what looks comfortable? The public is never going to see his face again before they realize it never changes, so he should give them something pretty to look at.

Suddenly the world is a collection of _Lasts_ , and what used to be one of an infinity becomes one of a kind. Letting go of life, in a great show of hypocrisy, allows Jongin to hold every second preciously.

This could be the last popcorn he ever eats. This could be the last disgusting amount of butter he licks from his fingers. The thrill of it all makes him laugh harder than the comedy on TV.

If another vampire saw him now, provided they'd ever met Jongin before, they'd have to conclude something was wrong. Death might not be the first thing to come to mind, but it won't be far off.

"I'm kind of a wreck right now."

"Yeah, you're an absolute mess," Minseok tells him. And Jongin is sure he doesn't see it, the reality behind Jongin's statement, but that's okay. He doesn't need to.

"I know."

Minseok doesn't understand. But Minseok doesn't know who Jongin was for centuries. Minseok doesn't know how this is the most human Jongin has ever been able to act, and what a messy life this is compared to his eternity of monotony.

If they could have continued like that, parallel lines that never intersect but watch each other from across the shoreline, then maybe Jongin would still have a shot at his perfect death. He could die by Minseok, and Minseok might miss him but it wouldn't be heartbreaking.

And, the vampire that still exists in Jongin adds, it wouldn't be for long either.

But Jongin hasn't thought of Minseok in terms of how short his life is in awhile. Minseok is so much more than his death.

Just like Oh Sehun is turning out to be so much more than a meal. He's turned in the stake the damns Jongin to hell, because Minseok isn't happy that Jongin is indirectly interfering with Lu Han and Sehun's relationship. They've got it easy, as far as Jongin is concerned, if Sehun's biggest problem was his boyfriend living next to his ex and Lu Han's is Sehun showing up with hickeys on his neck.

Chanyeol doesn't have a neck to get hickeyed, Baekhyun doesn't have a boyfriend to live next to an ex, and Jongin's happy ending is one where his love remains unrequited until his death.

If he pushes his point enough, maybe Minseok will realize he's still in love with Lu Han. Then Jongin can use Sehun as his blood bag, and maybe they'll move in together instead and Jongin will still die not alone but definitely unloved.

It's a nice dream while he crafts it.

But Minseok smashes it to pieces not seconds later, because talking him in circles brings about the final nail in Jongin's sinner's coffin.

He was never strong enough to say no to a Minseok with his neck bared willingly.

And while his stomach churns warm with blood, Jongin attributes his very long years to the reason why he doesn't go hysterical admitting to himself that no, no, he absolutely does not want to die unloved.

He still holds out hope that it'll be okay. Almost every part of his plan has fallen spectacularly at his feet, but if he plays it right he can maybe spare Minseok's heart if not anyone else's. He just can't be too nice to his human.

But his human is also sickly, and that fact which Jongin has since pushed aside suddenly becomes relevant when his feeding schedule involves directly inhibiting an already frail immune system. So he panics a little, goes full on nurse for Minseok, and nurses a little harder when he licks his teeth and thinks about how sinfully sweet he'd tasted.

Minseok calls him out for being so attentive, and while Jongin had given back a witty quip he reminds himself sharply not to care so much. Not to make it obvious he knows about Minseok's condition. At first, he'd just wanted to be polite. It was never going to be a fun conversation explaining Baekhyun's excessive narration of Minseok's life.

Now, he's starting to think more about Lu Han, and why Minseok had broken up with him even when he loved him.

He doesn't even love Jongin, and Jongin does not want to die alone.

So he skirts a line of wanting but not wanting, and wanting but not wanting too much. Minseok is a temptation with everything he does, because the longer they live together the more details Jongin notices. He has still not stopped falling in love with Minseok's details.

More troubling, his body has not stopped craving blood.

Chanyeol was not around to explain the progression of the stages of dying. What used to be a faint buzzing had come back as an instinctual cacophony, until Jongin doesn't think about Minseok's health before he's pulling him aside and holding him close, draining the warmth from him like it will give him longer to live. Longer to love.

 _Once a week,_ he tells Minseok. _A little less, if I push it._

Once a week is pushing it. But Jongin is more than his bloodlust, and Jongin loves more than he lusts. He remembers Minseok as a lover first, and that he is not asking to be loved back. He's not asking to live longer. 

At this point, he will be lucky if his plan lets him die lonely.

Minseok burns under his hand, and suddenly Jongin does not want to be lucky at all.

Much like Minseok, Lu Han too is a figure of Baekhyun's gossip come to life. It's different, meeting Baekhyun's tragic characters as they simply walk about their daily lives unbothered. They've met accidentally in the hallway a few times, and Jongin has wiped himself from Lu Han's memories each time. But he remembers Lu Han, and he knows better than he should the relationship between Lu Han and Minseok.

If there is such a thing as fate and a balance of karma, Jongin gives up all of his fortune to let Lu Han be home now.

He knocks sternly, and he gives Lu Han consideration, as Minseok's beloved ex and friend, in that he doesn't simply knock the door open as well.

"Oh my god, what—who even are you?" Lu Han's head pokes out from the crack of his door opening, and Jongin doesn't have time to explain.

"Minseok is in danger," he rushes to get out. And at all of the questions swimming in Lu Han's eyes, he adds, "Please, don't ask, I don't know what to do."

Death has a startling way of making him human. Jongin just thought it'd be his own that did it.

He doesn't expect Minseok to be happy. In fact, he expects the rage that rolls off his roommate when he returns home, and he doesn't have it in him to return it.

Jongin couldn't risk going to a hospital himself. He has no public identification, no record, and a doctor might not ignore how unnaturally cold he is. So he relied on Lu Han for updates, and thankfully the other trusts him enough to provide them.

Jongin doesn't know if he's earned himself eternal damnation in exchange for Minseok's life tonight, but the relief he feels when everything works out in their favor makes it worth it. Minseok can be angry with him while Jongin is on his deathbed and he'll probably just smile.

But Jongin recognizes the frustration taunt in Minseok's jaw. This rage without an outlet, it's not unlike the many moments he's had with Baekhyun. And while Jongin isn't sure he's done anything right by Baekhyun, he's been trying his best to do so for Minseok.

Of anything they have in common, death is the strongest. Jongin may have too much life and Minseok too little, but they've both struggled with this uncertain end in their separate ways. Until that struggle itself becomes a crutch, a familiarity to help ease the unknown. There would be a space in Jongin's heart now, if he did not have Death to take it up.

Jongin doesn't know which part is ailing Minseok the most, but certainty can ease most insecurities with the foundation it provides.

"I just wanted to say I'll die before you."

There's no reason behind his confidence. It's a hunch of the most dangerous kind, because if he's wrong then Minseok will die with Jongin a liar in his eyes.

But Jongin has a feeling he's not wrong. When he imagines Baekhyun's death, or even Chanyeol's, there's a natural hesitation to decide on any one detail. He doesn't know and can't know. But with this, a life he's involved in his purely by how short it will be, Jongin puts his faith in his instinct.

Minseok will outlive him, an inhuman immortal creature, and if that can give his love some kind of confidence in his own existence then Jongin will gladly paint himself frail.

Jongin had been adequate at keeping his feelings in check before the hospital scare.

Almost losing Minseok makes that nearly impossible. 

When he holds Minseok close again, after hesitating to touch for fear of hurt and fear of vulnerability both his own, Jongin feels too strongly to hold back. Minseok must feel his affections because Jongin is drowning in them, and his speaks his love language through his fingers as he holds Minseok gently as he feeds. It's in the way he savors every taste of him, and how he lets himself pretend they're lovers when he marks Minseok the way a human would once he's gone limp and unconscious.

Minseok catches him once, but he doesn't sound as upset as he teases he is.

It's not a good thing. It means Jongin is failing. Jongin's plan is failing.

He doesn't know when he stopped wanting to succeed.

The last hold he imposes on himself is that Minseok must come to him first. Jongin will not be burdened with the weight of initiation.

He thinks Minseok is about to plunge them both past the point of no return when he urges Jongin closer. Closer, closer, he says, like a siren beckoning for ruin.

 _Why would you fall in love with me?_ Jongin wants to ask. _Why would you write your own tragedy?_

Would Baekhyun feel better if he saw them now? Would it comfort him that there's a sadder love story than his, and it happens right by his side?

No, maybe not. Baekhyun will never know the joy of kissing Chanyeol, but Jongin will spend the rest of his life indulging in how sweet Minseok tastes.

But what a short life it will be. Jongin wishes he had more tears to cry over it, but he only wipes Minseok's as he's fed every unfinished dream his love has ever had.

"I want to promise you a lifetime," Minseok confesses, like it's a sin worthy of a pastor. "But my lifetime isn't worth a thing."

Jongin kisses his cheeks then licks the salt from his lips.

"Your lifetime is worth living for," he promises. Whether he means Minseok or himself—well, it works for both.

Playing house isn't so tragic when they know their truths. Their biggest ones, anyways. Jongin has secrets he'll be taking to his grave with little regret, but neither him nor Minseok believe they'll have a long happy life together. A happy life maybe, with how normal but bright their days continue on, but Jongin will die before Minseok and Minseok has never been cast to live long. 

They're good at pretending though. They don't hide from their truth, and Jongin does not lie but he does not tell Minseok things he doesn't ask for.

There's Baekhyun.

There's Minseok's illness.

There's Chanyeol.

These are truths he might take to his grave.

He thought he'd take another wish with him into the earth, but the version of him who imagined a death without touching his boyfriend properly is not the version who experiences Kim Minseok asking if his dick can't get hard because he's a vampire.

It's so ridiculous and far from the truth that Jongin laughs harder than he ever remembers in the recent decades, and Minseok's eagerness fills him with so much fondness and joy that he forgets his concerns and lets himself get swept up by human spontaneity.

For a moment, they're just two humans falling into bed together, clumsy but with a natural chemistry that makes joining at the hip feel like a coming home.

And then Jongin's monster rears its head, and he remembers why he's been so tired. He doesn't feed regularly. He drinks from Minseok, occasionally, and he says it's enough but he knows it's not. It hasn't been for awhile, but the bloodlust isn't deafening and he can endure as long as he rests enough and keeps a clear head.

He had a clear head this morning. No man alive or undead could keep a clear head with Minseok trembling in his arms, impossibly warm around him and panting his name.

Jongin closes his eyes and each breath he takes inhales more of Minseok's scent. The air is thick with it, and it coats his skin like a temptation daring him to bite through and reveal the red that pulses beneath it.

He wants to. The harder he pounds himself into Minseok's body, the more he wants to rip him apart and feast on the warmth Jongin sorely lacks. His beast is kept hardly at bay on a fraying leash, but Minseok doesn't know and Minseok continues to be his perfect, desirable self that Jongin might devour in his frenzy to own everything of him—even his destruction.

He could not be Minseok's beginning, but he could be Minseok's end. Minseok could die at the height of pleasure, in Jongin's arms, and never know a day of heartbreak because Jongin would shoulder it all.

Minseok tells him to _do it_ and Jongin is already drooling for him. His hand wraps around Minseok so he can feel how close he is, and right at the moment when his blood sings the loudest, Jongin bites down and euphoria floods his senses.

His hips snap erratically into the heat of Minseok's body, and if Jongin experiences one last thing holy as a creature denounced by the church, it's Minseok's blood on his tongue while he comes, clutching his lover in a vice grip like sheer force can keep him from death.

The heaviness of Minseok's body tells Jongin that he lost consciousness, and a voice in his head tells him to stop but a louder one insists that _just a bit more_ won't hurt.

So Jongin drinks and drinks, and there's no one but himself to stop him.

His head feels dizzy with all the clarity that comes to it, finally replenished after so long, and as his senses seep back into their original sharpness—Jongin wrenches his head away and Minseok flops backwards like a corpse when Jongin let's go of him.

For a brief panicked second Jongin thinks he really is a corpse, and the spike of adrenaline blanks out his mind. He's still present, still conscious, but he can feel every twitch of Minseok's body and every shallow breath he takes.

He's still alive. Jongin moves on auto-pilot to make him comfortable, but it's not fully him. He stares at Minseok's face, watches his lover's eyes flutter open, and he thinks again of death and murder and mercy.

Minseok could die like this, by his fangs, and isn't it romantic to die in your lover's arms? Isn't it poetic that the monster cries while the beauty finds peace in eternal slumber?

"You're gorgeous," Jongin says in a voice that's his but far away from him. His beauty. The beauty to offset his beast.

"I love you."

_I love you, so I'll kill you._

_I will kill you, and death will never taste more delicious._

This is mercy. This is what's best. This is murder, but it is necessary. This is—

Not what Minseok wants.

Jongin feels his back hit the wall and he whimpers at the impact. His fangs are slick with Minseok's blood, and his traitorous tongue polishes them clean while his mind urges him to go back and wet them again.

He sinks his teeth into his own arm. If his body wants to feed, then it should suffer for it for what it almost made him do.

He hadn't expected the beast to sound like it loves Minseok too.

Jongin makes himself barely presentable before he rushes next door. Lu Han isn't home, but Sehun is and he'll do to watch Minseok while Jongin cools his head.

A day. He can do it in a day, and then prostrate himself to beg for Minseok's forgiveness. Maybe explain what kind of shitshow he's gotten himself into, falling in love with Jongin.

But the more Jongin wanders the streets, aimless and yet lost at the same time, the more wrongfooted he feels. Everyone around him is a human. He bets most of them have more life left than he does, and yet he's had more life than they ever will.

It's so silly, how the measure of ones lifetime doesn't add up to time one lives.

Jongin has always said he'll die before Minseok, and maybe this is what he meant. The weight of the world hits him all at once and then he collapses under the stress; that's the end of Kim Jongin.

Except his phone buzzes, and Jongin doesn't remember taking his phone before he realizes it must have already been in his pocket.

Even now, he only has one contact.

"Jongin, I'm in town. You're still in Seoul, right? It's about time you stopped hiding from me."

Byun Baekhyun doesn't look terribly older, but it also hasn't been a year since they last met. It feels like longer, with how Jongin stayed attached to him for so long. And with how Baekhyun feels... different.

Jongin can't place why, but if he had to imagine Baekhyun as anything he'd liken him to a coiled spring ready to explode. Jongin had always wanted to be around to mitigate the damage.

Now though, Baekhyun sits across from him in a private hotel room he's currently staying in, sipping wine like he's met Buddha.

"I met Chanyeol."

Jongin doesn't have a heart that beats, but his chest still feels like it stutters.

"What?"

"I met my soulmate, your friend."

Baekhyun says it so dispassionately that Jongin can't parse it as real.

"What did—are you, are you okay?"

Baekhyun snorts, and he puts down his drink with a sigh. "You didn't even ask how he was. You sure you were friends?"

"He's the one that called us that," Jongin replies dumbly. Chanyeol has occupied the status of dead for so long in his head, he doesn't remember how to think of him alive anymore.

"Well he's an idiot, so I'm not surprised."

Baekhyun really must have met Chanyeol.

"He's dead now though, so there's no use looking for him."

Somehow, the urge had never even arose in Jongin. Chanyeol said he was dying, and Jongin accepted that as like-creatures. Chanyeol was never going to outlive him.

"Did you see it? His death...?"

"Yeah."

And with a single word Byun Baekhyun brings Jongin back to life. Chanyeol hadn't died alone. His friend got to see his soulmate one last time, and his greatest fear never had to come true.

"You look so happy, but what's it got to do with you?"

"He loved you so much."

Baekhyun stiffens, and his air of dispassion cracks.

"He lived his whole life for you, and even when he was dying, all he could think about was how you would feel. I can't—I'll never be able to feel like that, but I admired him for it. I'm glad that... he didn't have to suffer in the end." Jongin may love Minseok, but they are not soulmates. Jongin will never understand Chanyeol's feelings, but he knows what they're not. His soul doesn't reach for Minseok's like a missing half. They're just two lonely ones trying desperately to fit together when no one else has.

"This is going to sound terrible, but I'm glad he died."

Jongin reels from the confession. He has tolerated a lot of senseless things from Baekhyun's mouth, understanding with intimate knowledge why he feels a certain way or acts how he does. Most of the cause is Jongin's fault. But this is too much.

Baekhyun stops him before he can say so though.

"Let me finish. I've spent almost all my adult years hating him, blaming him for how empty I was and how hopeless my life seemed. It didn't feel fair that he could just— _die_ and be over it while I was left behind having to suffer. I carried that hate with me wherever I went, until it became a part of who I was. Byun Baekhyun, hater of his soulmate, who never even met his soulmate."

The cracks in Baekhyun widen, and Jongin watches him fall apart.

"And that moron, he fucking takes that all away with one smile. One fucking look and I can't imagine hating him anymore. But I can't live without hating him. It'll be another gap in my life that can't be filled. So I held his hand and said I loved him, and I know he saw—he saw something in me, the lie, because the last words he said to me were an apology."

Baekhyun cries, but he doesn't break. He breathes like it'll ground him, like it'll make the memory less painful and the tears stop falling. 

"Jongin, is it possible to fall in love with someone in five seconds? The last five seconds you ever have with them?"

The Jongin of a year ago would say no, but the Jongin of now isn't sure. The Jongin of whenever has never had a soulmate either. But it doesn't seem like Baekhyun is looking for an answer.

"I'm happy he died, because if he lived I don't know if I could have loved him like this. I can't function without some part of me hating him, and—fuck, he deserves better than that. He deserves a better me, one of the other mes he fell in love with before. If they held his hand, maybe he wouldn't have died feeling sorry when he hadn't done anything _wrong_."

Jongin stands up, and Baekhyun doesn't indicate he notices but he falls into Jongin's arms easily and it's like they're back in college, a lonely soul and an incomplete one. Baekhyun sobs into his chest, and Jongin rubs his back knowing it won't be enough.

"Why did he have to die, Jongin? Why did he die before I had a chance to love him?"

Jongin greets the morning with Baekhyun still curled up next to him, snuffling and the edges of his eyes still puffy from crying. He pets Baekhyun's hair like he knows Chanyeol would, and when he finally stirs awake he sounds significantly more stable.

"I owe you an apology too, Jongin," Baekhyun says over breakfast. He'd ordered room service, and Jongin just happens to like the taste of expensive catering as he samples a bit of everything.

"What for? We're friends, so this is no big deal." It probably helped Jongin more than Baekhyun knows, because Jongin feels much more ready to face Minseok after last night with one of his biggest burdens lifted. Chanyeol had not died alone.

"I mean, you've always been an amazing friend. I know I teased you a lot for seeming like a shit friend to Chanyeol, but... I really couldn't have made it through a lot of things if I didn't have you."

Well there it is. When he meets Chanyeol wherever they end up, he can't bitch at Jongin for not taking care of his precious Baekhyun.

"But I... haven't been that amazing back. I took out my anger on you a lot, I treated you like you were disposable, I never really... offered myself to you." Baekhyun looks guilty, but he also puts a pout on. "I told you all my problems, but you never shared any of yours with me. It looks like I've been taking advantage of you all these years."

Jongin blinks, stunned by the streak of insight that's hit Baekhyun. "Byun Baekhyun, are you asking me how I am?"

Baekhyun huffs. "Yes! I am! How are you doing Jongin? It's been almost a year since we last saw each other, you good?"

Jongin laughs at his childishness, and while Baekhyun has seemingly matured thanks to one meeting with his soulmate, he's still Baekhyun.

"I'm getting by," he says vaguely, and by the expression on Baekhyun's face he won't get away with just this. He levels his friend with a stare that's only slightly sad. "Baekhyun, I'm dying."

Baekhyun drops his chopsticks. Jongin watched the alarms go off in his eyes, his foundations caving in, and he almost thinks it's a mistake. Baekhyun just lost Chanyeol for good, and now he has to deal with losing Jongin too.

"What...?"

Jongin puts down his own chopsticks.

"I realized it awhile ago, but I didn't know how to tell you."

"So you—you ran away from me?" Baekhyun looks hurt, and Jongin flinches away from it. "I thought you left because you were sick of my attitude, and I was mad at first but I tried to fix it once I got myself together. But I had no idea—Jongin, how long were you going to keep this from me?"

Jongin doesn't know how well "forever" is going to go down with Baekhyun, but his face seems to speak for him and the answer is: not well. 

"Until the end, huh? And I'd find out by, what, waiting until the number of missed calls became suspicious or your number went out of service before I checked with the police?" Jongin hadn't thought that far, but he'd sort of hoped Baekhyun never noticed until his deathbed. Looking back, it was an incredibly optimistic dream.

"Christ. I guess... I guess I can't blame you for not trusting me with this sooner. Like I said, I haven't been good friend material for awhile." 

"I just didn't want to hurt you," Jongin insists. It's true that he's never felt the kind of confidence Baekhyun had in him for Baekhyun, but Jongin never considered it Baekhyun's fault. It's just how Jongin was, after so long in solitude. But Baekhyun could afford to be less selfish and less volatile, so he lets it be. "You'd already lost Chanyeol. I didn't want you to dread losing me too."

Baekhyun still looks upset, but it doesn't feel as sharp with hurt as before. "Are all you vampires this masochistic? Do you ever think of yourselves first?"

"We're plenty selfish. We have to be to survive." Masochism is a choice, but Jongin doesn't really meet enough vampires to know if it's a popular one.

Baekhyun shakes his head. "Chanyeol was like this too. Out of the two of us, _I'm_ the one that's going to live longer. Save some of your pity for yourselves. Jongin, do you think I'd be okay with you just dying on your own, even if it meant I lived in ignorance for a little longer?"

"A little, yeah."

Baekhyun groans and drags his hands down his face. "Your opinion of me is terrible! Why would you ever agree to be friends with me if this is your image of me?!"

The fact that Baekhyun still has it in him to joke makes this conversation far more hopeful than Jongin ever imagined. "Because you're funny, and you can make a job as boring as TA feel entertaining once in awhile."

Baekhyun is still frowning, but Jongin can see the smile fighting to spread on his lips.

"I never thought of you as a bad friend, Baekhyun. And I can't say for sure, but..." He wonders how to word this. There's still so much about Chanyeol he'd never been able to grasp. "If Chanyeol had lived, he wouldn't have wanted a better you. The one he loves has always been Byun Baekhyun, whoever he turned out to be. You would always be enough, as yourself."

For once, Baekhyun is rendered speechless and Jongin allows him the silence. He may love Minseok, but overpriced hotel room service is a flavorful oasis compared to his cooking. He needs to take advantage of it before he goes back and faces his own mistakes.

It's mid-day when he returns to Minseok's apartment. After sending Sehun away and facing Minseok directly, any confidence he left Baekhyun's with about trying to live more true to himself sort of shrivels up and pretends it never existed.

Jongin had decided he doesn't want to live with Minseok with too many secrets between them. He doesn't want to hide more than necessary, and he wants to feel like a normal couple that don't have just about everything stacked against them.

Baekhyun would be a little too complicated, and so thus would Chanyeol, but he should stop pretending he doesn't know that he's not alone in this march towards death.

He thinks Minseok needs to hear it from him too, that ever since they've gotten together he's never seen Minseok as anything but himself. He's never been a number of years left or a tragic fate. Jongin is not Lu Han.

This is step one to the relationship he wants with Minseok, the relationship he'll die with, and it ends with shared smiles and a promise of hope.

It'd been good before, but after Jongin metaphorically lets go and embraces Minseok with an open heart and free mind, Jongin feels better about his general existence than he ever has. His heavy thoughts still lurk in the back of his mind, but it feels so much lighter to think of Minseok as his boyfriend and not a tool in his plan for a perfectly constructed end.

His death is going to be messy. It's going to break his heart and Minseok's, but they've decided to freefall into the despair together, so they've nothing left to lose before the inevitable rock bottom.

When Minseok starts looking at him like he has an expiration date, Jongin tries to be like Chanyeol. Chanyeol who he'd never understood, but thinks finally, maybe, he's starting to.

He tries to love Minseok's worry away. He grinds down his thorns and his sharp edges so that the only thing that can hurt Minseok are the fangs he asks for, begs for, because Jongin may be a beast but he bends for his beauty.

He's stopped holding back the part of him that took over their first night, letting his darker thoughts slip past his tongue in the heat of the moment and the heat of Minseok so they're not pent up. His boyfriend doesn't shy away even if he doesn't always react well, and like this Jongin can even tame his monster.

He learns what Minseok's body likes and what it can take with focused determination. They have an abundance of many things except time, and Jongin doesn't want to waste it getting to know each other like this. He wants to know, and he wants Minseok to feel known and spoiled in the way only a lover can provide.

He determines he wants to achieve everything he can with Minseok before the end, so they can be left with no regrets. The only problem is he discovers new things he wants to do with his boyfriend every day, and it feels like a proper lifetime wouldn't be enough to clear his bucket list.

And not only that, but he's getting tired. It feels like a waste to spend hours of their time together unconscious, but exhaustion pulls down his eyelids without his consent, and Jongin can only wake up with his quiet regrets and quieter blessings.

_Thank you, for letting me wake up._

He does not know who he is praying to.

"Kim Jongin, you have three seconds to convince me you aren't the scum of the earth. Do not think: what is tomorrow?"

Jongin blinks, and as Lu Han instructs, he does not think either but it results in three seconds of pure silence.

"Oh my god, you really don't know. I'm firing you as Minseok's boyfriend, you're not worthy after all."

Jongin doesn't really know how to come back from that, but he asks anyways, "What's tomorrow?"

"Minseok's birthday, you failure of a man! Have you never checked? Never asked him? That's a third date question, at the very least!"

Oh. Maybe Lu Han is onto something calling him unworthy. It'd never crossed his mind, and what are the odds he'll have another chance at Minseok's next birthday?

"Lu Han, I'm sorry," Jongin apologizes beforehand.

"For what?"

Then Jongin snaps his fingers and Lu Han freezes. Then shakes himself out of it and eyes Jongin harshly.

"Kim Jongin, you have three seconds to convince me you aren't the scum of the earth. Do not think: what is tomorrow?"

"Minseok's birthday," Jongin replies immediately, and Lu Han smiles.

"Good. You pass for now, keep it up. Also, I have ideas..."

The party goes better than Jongin expected. He laughs despite having seen no point in such a thing for the last few hundred years. He doesn't keep track of his years, and it never felt significant that the world remained intact for yet another orbit about the sun.

But Minseok is happy, and with Sehun and Lu Han in their apartment while knowing who Jongin is, it feels like they're a normal human couple. It feels like they both have time for once.

Jongin is excited to see Minseok open his gift. He'd panicked a moment when Lu Han bought watercolors, so close to Jongin's gift, but the brands aren't the same so he relaxes though no human senses could pick up how.

He'd checked Minseok's studio earlier, memorizing what brands he had and what colors he uses. This one had been absent, and the store clerk assured him that the high quality was sought after by many artists. Minseok lacked a bright red in his supplies, and as a small joke Jongin felt it was only fitting he gift Minseok the color he feeds from.

Minseok decides to save it for later though, and then later turns into Jongin on his back, feeling Minseok burn him from the inside and urging him even deeper.

It's now, connected as one, that Jongin realizes that there exists no future where either of them are happy to have survived without the other. He can no longer hope for a perfect death, nor can he spare Minseok the pain of being left alone. But as he whispers filth in Minseok's ear and cries like a wretch, he can fool himself into thinking a moment can offset it.

If he can give Minseok enough moments, maybe his love can live off memories when there are no longer new ones to be made.

Jongin doesn't realize he never sees Minseok open his present. 

Nothing needs to happen for Minseok to burrow in Jongin's arms and sniffle without a word. He doesn't need to speak for Jongin to understand either. The first one gone will be him, and while he takes no pleasure in imagining Minseok meeting a similar end, the one left behind will always be the one who suffers most.

He wishes he could change things. He wishes he could live a little longer, to know that he's stolen a little more time for them, somehow.

Drinking more won't help. Jongin could gorge himself and not live another day than he's meant to, but it fends off the fatigue.

When Minseok gives him permission to seek out strangers, Jongin does once before he can't anymore. He knows Minseok is unhappy, just like he knows his boyfriend doesn't begrudge him for his nature either. So instead of strangers, Jongin calls Baekhyun.

"So let me get this straight: you're worried your boyfriend, Kim Minseok," Baekhyun emphasizes name in disbelief, "is upset that you're drinking from strangers like you always have. So you want to use me, another stranger, instead."

"You're not a stranger," Jongin points out weakly. "You're my friend."

"I'm a stranger to your boyfriend! Or I might as well be, since we were barely acquaintances." Baekhyun frowns, and he's not taking to Jongin's plan like he thought he would. "Just talk with him."

If he could, he would. "If I don't feed regularly, I sleep too long to make up for it. I sleep after eating anyways, but when I wake up I feel better and I don't need to rest as much. He knows he can't be my only source, so he was never going to say no. But that doesn't mean it's not uncomfortable."

There's no right answer. And they don't have the time to spend causing strife.

"So this is for you then, not him." Baekhyun doesn't look angry, and Jongin doesn't hear accusation in his voice. "You don't want to feel guilty."

Jongin, despite what Minseok tells him, is plenty selfish and nods.

"Well, I said I was going to be a better friend. So come here, you can have my arm. Save the hickeys for your boyfriend."

In the daytime, Minseok smiles at him and Jongin gives him a sleepy approximation back. They lounge together, sometimes Minseok reads books to him, and Jongin hopes the sun on Minseok's skin warms him where Jongin's icy body can't.

Night is when it feels like the darkness has mass, and because Jongin is a creature meant to roam it it serves as protection not a threat.

Night is when he watches Minseok snore in his arms, and whispers to him his truths.

"I will never lie to you."

"I want to stay with you as long as possible."

"I'm sorry."

Sorry that he has to go. Sorry that his plan never worked. Sorry that he never got to introduce him to Baekhyun or tell him about Chanyeol. Sorry that when Jongin dies, he will take centuries of life with him that he never shared with Minseok.

"My months with you outshine the centuries I spent on my own."

When he whispers into Minseok's hair, he imagines the words floating in a dream. A Minseok, somewhere, must hear them. He doesn't need to know what they mean. Jongin just doesn't want to see his lover cry as he recites his book of last words.

"I will not miss this life, but I will miss existing with you."

Jongin imagines the Chanyeol Baekhyun saw, and for the first time he knows he understands a part of his friend with absolute clarity. When you feel the end is near, you give up on hopes for yourself. This world will not be yours any longer; but it will be Minseok's, it will be Baekhyun's, and they will remain at its mercy alone.

What else can you do but apologize?

"I'm sorry that we could only ever be a beginning."

He'd never even gave Minseok roses.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! I feel a little awkward replying to comments directly (and got anxious abt like... bolstering my own comment count?? haha...) but I've really been touched by the reception of this series more than I can express. I'm so happy that people enjoyed it even with its heavier themes, and I really do promise.... they're happy in the end!! they're granted a romcom worthy life eventually even if it didn't work out perfectly this time
> 
> I don't think I have any other plans for this verse, so this'll be the end of vampire!jongin's saga. But with that out of my system I can go back to my soulmate au and then.... I wrote like 10k of yet another reincarnation au but like with mafia elements and I don't know where it's going so we'll see LOL. I might upload another extra just because I have a small scene in my head about how Chanbaek's reunion went, but I'm not sure if it's worth it and they did get their story told in the main fic anyways so who knows
> 
> xiukai nation stay strong i'll be back sooner than later!!


End file.
